


It's All Gone

by fuzzykitty01



Category: Guardians of Childhood - William Joyce, Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Angst, Desecration of a Temple, Feels, Gen, Jack is a sad kitty, Jack makes pretty things, but then Pitch ruins everything, mentions of social deprivation, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-28
Updated: 2013-04-28
Packaged: 2017-12-09 18:55:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/776863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fuzzykitty01/pseuds/fuzzykitty01
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kink Meme Fill: <br/>Jack has long since discovered that he can create beautiful figurines and sculptures out of his ice, and it gives him much joy to do so. He's never been able to show anyone, but that never stopped him. He found a cave (near Burgess) that is cold enough to store his creations for long periods of time. This cave has creations from hundreds of years ago, things he spent months, even years on. Its where he goes to calm down, forget his loneliness, and stop from going insane. Wouldn't it be just terrible if a certain nightmare king trashed it?</p>
<p>I want to see jack go to the cave only to find all of the sculptures destroyed or gone. He throws a complete fit, sobbing and screaming, cutting his fingers trying to fit shards of ice back together, before just shutting down, curling up and not moving. The other guardians get worried after not seeing him for awhile and no snowdays anywhere. One of them (maybe he trusted them enough to show them) suggests the cave, and find the scene. Major h/c</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's All Gone

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Holy shit this needed to be filled. The whole thing with Jack's mom just sorta came to me on the fly, but I think it's one of the best ideas I've come up with in a loooooong time.
> 
> The OP loved it, so I hope you guys do too. OP actually said,
> 
> "Oh my god. This is EXACTLY what i wanted its scary. You are the most precise filler i have ever encountered, thank you so much!"
> 
> You're welcome beautiful OP who somehow scarily shares my brain. 8D
> 
> And now, without further adieu, on to the story.

"Beautiful." Jack breathed as he ghosted his fingers around his finished product. The cold beauty of the woman of ice resonated deep within Jack's frozen soul. Jack knew his ice sculptures were a thing of marvel even before he regained his memories of doing so at his uncle's farm when he was alive. He even went so far as to transport the finer ones to a constantly below-freezing network of caves in the Swiss Alps so they would never melt away. He was in these caves now, admiring his handy work in a brand new way.

Before he became a guardian and begged Tooth to let him see his memories, Jack just saw this lady of ice as a simple work of art with no real meaning behind it beyond deep-seeded need for something to do. Now he looked upon the immortalized face of his mother and felt frozen tears gather in his periwinkle eyes.

This cave was his sanctuary. In his first 300 years of existence, Jack would come here to bask in beauty and forget that he couldn't be seen. He could gaze upon any of his old sculptures for hours and lose himself in his imagination trying to figure out a story for each one. All the while ignoring that he himself would never have a story of his own. (For it was very hard to make your mark on history if you couldn't be seen)

For the longest time, Jack was convinced this cave of ice was the closest he would ever get to real companionship. And for a while, he was right. Then the guardians came barreling into his life with burlap sacks, baby teeth, accents, and dream sand. Jack was ever grateful to them for their friendship—honest and true despite a rocky start. Though he was certain he was happy for real now, Jack couldn't bring himself to forget his place of solitude and peace among ice. He wasn't ready to forget.

Jack made his usual rounds and smiled at each and every sculpture with the look of a proud father. After a while, he called it a day and raced back to Santoff's Clausen for the guardian's annual get-together. Is children would be there when he got back.

Or so he thought.

Jack never noticed the looming shadow slithering across the cave floor. He didn't think to check for signs of danger or fear within his hallowed place. He didn't realize that Pitch Black was looking for ways to punish the snow sprite for his near-comical defeat. Pitch materialized out of his shadows and gave the snowy cavern a razor-thin smile.

Nothing was left intact when Pitch sank back into the shadows with his Night-Mare brood.

Jack came back to the cavern a week later nearly euphoric with glee. He had a grand time at Santoff's Clausen sipping eggnog and munching on Christmas Cookies. He had a blast with Jamie and Sophie on the snow-day he gave them. They went sledding and had many a snowball fight. Sophie managed to make a Snowman that looked suspiciously like Bunnymund and Jack gave a chortle when Sophie dubbed it the Easter-Snow-Bunny. It was a good week; great, in fact.

So you can imagine the shock Jack had in finding his sanctuary destroyed. His toothy grin slid right off his rapidly-purpling face. His shaking body was in no way due to laughter or excitement as he picked up the remains of a woman's arm made of ice. He had a faraway look in his frosty eyes as he clutched the arm to his chest like he was hugging a child. Suddenly, Jack's mind came back from its impromptu holiday and he screamed.

It was an awful sound. Aided by the howls of the North Wind, Jack's lament took on an almost inhuman lilt. So much pain, despair, loneliness, anger, shattered hopes and dreams could be heard rushing from the blue-tinted lips of Jack Frost. He screamed for almost ten minutes straight before the rage gave way to desolation. Screams turned to shuddering sobs. Jack crumpled in on himself like wet newspaper. Jack felt nearly so useless. How could he have let this happen? For centuries he kept his creations safe, and now they're gone. Shattered like a broken dream.

Jack didn't notice the ice was turning pink from his attempts at putting them together again. He didn't care when pain shot up his arms and legs from kneeling in the broken ice. He just needed to fit that piece with this one and maybe—just maybe—they could be salvaged. Jack needed to fix this; he just had to! Some of these sculptures were of things he could never quite remember until Tooth gave him his teeth. He needed to burn them into his memory so that they would never again be forgotten by Jack's slippery mind.

He couldn't fix them. He could never fix long-gone wisps of life-once-lived anymore than he could fix the splinters of centuries-old ice. Jack dropped the pieces he was holding and instead held his head as he cried.

Bunnymund was the first to notice something was amiss. Weeks after the get-together at North's place, and Jack still hadn't shown his pale-as-snow face for a snow-day. Jamie swore he hadn't seen him, and neither did the penguins and ermines. Bunny grew worried; despite their bickering, Jack was his closest friend, and Bunny liked to think he knew the winter sprite best of all.

"Hey, North. Have ya seen Jack?" Bunnymund questioned one day.

"He is not causing snow-day?" North questioned in return.

"Naw mate, the little frostbite hasn't been seen at all since the day after our reunion." Bunny sighed. North looked thoughtful. He absently ran his fingers through his bushy white beard and said,

"Is serious then. If Jack not bringing winter, bad things happen with other seasons, da?"

Bunny stiffened at the realization. He might hate the cold with all his rapidly-beating heart, but Bunnymund knew the ramifications of not having winter. The seasons were a delicate thing to balance. The reason the Easter of '68 was such a big deal to Bunnymund was not simply a matter of Jack ruining Easter—though that was also a big part—but more out of fear for the upset balance of Nature.

"When I get my paws on that little pain in my tail…" Bunnymund trailed off, his point made clear.

"Is not time for threats, Bunny. Is time for search." North said with an air of seriousness.

"Right." Bunny conceded.

They gathered up the other guardians and after a brief deliberation, decided to scout the Warren and use Bunnymund's nose to pick up Jack's scent. The Warren was a world-wide network of tunnels; if Jack was on Earth, Bunny could find him. And so the hunt was on.

Jack meanwhile had retreated into his mind. He clutched the icy remains of his mother's sculpture to his chest and stared at the destruction with cloudy, unseeing eyes. Sometime during his stay in the cave, Jack started to hum. It wasn't anything fancy, it didn't have any words—none that Jack could remember anyway—but it was a long-forgotten lullaby that his mother used to hum to him.

That's how the others found him; curled up in a ball, clutching the sparkling remains of an ice-sculpture, and humming an old lullaby. Bunny was the first to snap out of his bewilderment. He hopped over to Jack and laid a gentle paw on his friend's head.

Jack showed him this cave once. He blushed when he told Bunnymund that he never showed anyone else. Bunnymund knew how lonely his frostbite was those first few centuries. He knew how precious this place of ice and frost was to the young spirit.

"Jack…" Bunnymund whispered. It was a testament to how quiet the caves were when Jack's name echoed back to Bunny. Jack curled up more and started sobbing again.

"Th-they're a-all gone, Bunny. All g-gone." He choked out. Bunny shushed the winter sprite and gently pet his snowy head.

"I am not understanding… What is all gone, Jack?" North asked gently. Tooth fluttered to and fro, trying to make sense of the scene before her. Sandy was quiet; even his sand was still above his golden head.

"The ice sculptures! My babies! Someone broke them!" Jack howled.

"I don't understand, Jack. Why can't you just make new ones?" Tooth asked innocently. She plucked up a broken piece of ice and inspected it, not realizing how distraught Jack was becoming. He leapt up from Bunny's protective petting and smacked the icy splinter from Tooth's hand. The fairy queen gasped and held her hand delicately to her chest. She blinked owlishly at Jack and the question was clear on her face; why?

"You weren't there. You don't get it! Three hundred years being alone… it's enough to drive you crazy! I tried so hard… SO HARD… to be seen, to be believed in, to make friends, but nothing worked!" Jack snarled. "So I made ice sculptures instead! They didn't talk, they didn't play with me, but they listened! They were mine! They were all beautiful! I brought them here to be safe and now they're gone!" Jack's rage crumpled into sobs. Tooth didn't know what to say; none of them knew what to say.

"Oh Jack…" North rumbled sympathetically. He gathered the youth into his strong arms and let him cry it out. All was peaceful, if not somber, until a dark cackle echoed throughout the cave.

"Aw… poor Jack." The slithering voice of darkness and fear itself manifested itself in mock sympathy. "Did someone break your… toys? How pathetic; Jack Frost can't make any friends so he plays with dolls instead."

Jack locked up tighter than Tooth's fortress in wartime. He growled low in his throat; like an arctic wolf wounded by poachers. Pitch Black glided out of the shadows; a perfectly gleeful look on his disheveled face. The Night-Mares did a number on him. His body and mind were broken beyond repair; what was once a mind capable of calculated planning was now a jumbled mess of vengeance and insanity. Perhaps this was why Pitch didn't notice Jack slowly reaching for his staff with the assuredness of a predator.

"You did this." Jack hissed. It was not a question.

"Yes I did." Pitch answered anyway.

"You…" Jack seethed through his teeth. "…You BASTARD!" Jack rounded on Pitch and smacked him dead in the face. Pitch howled over the crunching of cheekbones and cartilage. Jack wasn't done.

With the speed of a cobra and the unbridled power of winter at his fingertips, Jack laid into Pitch with no mercy in his icy blues. The others were shocked into inaction as they watched their fun-loving friend turn into a snarling beast of fury. He struck Pitch with his Shepard's Crook, he bit him with his perfect canines, he scratched the King of Nightmares with claws rivaling the monsters of the night. The walls were being dyed red and black from both Jack and Pitch's blood. Jack was only hurt because he didn't bother to avoid blows. He had one thought: make Pitch pay.

Bunny finally snapped out of it and wrenched Jack away from the King of Fear. Jack hissed and spat at Bunny to let him go.

"That's enough, Jack." Bunny snapped at him. The struggles slowly stopped when Jack really took in what he did.

Pitch was hardly recognizable. Whatever skin was showing was blue with bruising. The rest was cut up by Jack's teeth and nails. Black blood oozed from each wound and from every orifice. Pitch's arm was twisted in an unnatural way from when Jack attempted to rip it from his socket. Golden eyes filled with terror (isn't that ironic, he thought) locked onto Jack; searching, probing for any give for Pitch to use for escape. Even in his madness, it seemed Pitch recognized a lost cause when he saw one. Bunny gave the pitiful specter a sharp look.

"Leave now, Pitch, before I help him finish what you started." He growled. Pitch didn't need to be told twice.

Focusing his attention on Jack once more, Bunnymund recognized the look of utter hopelessness on the frostbite's face. Like a marionette with cut strings, Jack fell limp in Bunny's arms. All fight left the sprite's form and for once, Jack was content to let Bunny coddle him like a kit.

"Jack…" Tooth called hesitantly. Jack turned his broken gaze to the fairy queen. "Jack, I know that sorry won't fix three hundred years of pain, but I am sorry. We weren't there for you then, but now we can make up for lost time. You don't need your ice sculptures to be your friends anymore, Jack. That's what we're for." Tooth said with a watery smile.

"She is right Jack! Ice not good for conversation anyway." North said in that dismissive way that somehow made Jack think it was all okay. And it was, really; Jack knew that his friends would be there for him now, he just wasn't ready to let go before.

"I know, guys. Thanks. I guess I just wasn't ready to give them up. They've been there since the beginning and…" Jack was cut off by Bunnymund giving him an abrupt hug.

"And Pitch is an ass for breaking them. But we can make new ones, Jack. All of us together. We can't bring back the old ones, but we can help you make new ones. Better ones even." Bunnymund declared. Jack couldn't help but giggle at Bunnymund's flustered face; normally Bunny wouldn't dare get so sappy with words. He wiped away the lone happy tear that rolled down his frosty cheek and said with utmost sincerity,

"I'd like that."

—End


End file.
